President’s Block

Every year we show appreciation to our outgoing guild president by making blocks of her favorite theme and/or colors. This year we made sunflower and 9-patch blocks for Lisa. The sunflower blocks were a pattern from Cathy Van Bruggen Designs. It always interesting to see how different quilters execute the same block. I was able to combine needle-turn and invisible machine applique with embroidery to finish my block.

At first I appliqued the leaves, stems and flower centers by needle-turn applique. I tried to use the same technique with the pointy sunflower petals. but wasn’t happy with the result. There are too many changes from inside points to outside points in a very small space.

Lisa's Sunflower Block

(I wish that I had the skills of someone like Elly Sienkiewicz. I’m sure she would have produced a perfect needle-turn flower.)

I decided to use Kim Diehl’s invisible machine applique technique and think that it turned out well. I decided to embellish the center of the flower with french knots – and even put a few yellow knots for interest. I think she liked it – at least she said that she did when I gave it to her on Tuesday.

After seeing all her beautiful blocks I had to pull the blocks for my President’s Quilt out. Guess I’d better start working on my quilt. I added sashing strips to the blocks and decided on the layout when I received them. But then put them away. That was 2 years ago!

Guess I’d better get working on my quilt. I need to have it ready to hang in our President’s Corner at our guild’s July 2010 Quilt Show. – A New Year’s resolution already!

About Me

I began to quilt about 13 years ago with a very basic quilting course taught at a local quilt shop, Patchwork Plus. Before that, I had talked about quilting, read about it, studied techniques and even bought some tools, but I was hesitant to get started.